“SORGHUM AND TOM-BROWN”!

Dear St Jude,

While I cannot truthfully say that I grew up on the sorghum provided by the Catholic Relief Services, my childhood narrative, if bereft of such a detail, will amount to a falsehood. Sorghum and ‘tom brown’ were regularly served us in Primary School and for some among us, it was the most consistent sustenance. Every time we meet, these days, at social functions, we happily reminisce those days, and tease each other as to our preferences then.

I also know of some people who would have, but for the used clothing provided by same CRS, wondered about in their ‘birthday suits’.

St Jude, I came about at the tail-end of the 60s and so effectively grew up in the 70s and times were hard, at least that’s what I have come to know. Many families laboured to subsist and by the 80s, nature itself joined in the conspiracy to make lives miserable, by the occurrence of a long drought and the related matters of bush-burning and scarcity of food. Some say, it is these allied phenomena that formed the rationalisation of the now infamous military interventions in governance, which themselves bred their own array of mishaps and faux-pas.

You must be wondering why I am conducting this circuitous tour of times, unpleasant times past. It is because I intend to highlight the role played by our church in those dire times. To my knowledge, our church through the CRS and probably MIVA, Caritas and other organisations, rose to the challenges of the time and helped support not only the church but its members. The Catholic Church it can be said, was socially conscious and socially responsible. To many it was a refuge in many ways but most notably in the arena of food and shelter and health and education, to mention but a few. Little doubt the church occupied pride of place in our individual and collective lives. It is important to concede that I do not know if this was true for all parts of the country but it certainly was the case in the upper reaches of this country. What then has become of our Holy Roman Catholic Church in these times? Let me hasten to add that by our church I do not mean its clergy, if anything at all, the onus lies more on the lay membership who are not only more numerous but particularly more advantaged to take the relevant initiatives.

St Jude, a while ago I mentioned the pride I felt when I heard on the news circa 1988, that a Catholic lawyer was president of the Ghana Bar Association. Then a member of the National Team of the Young Christian Students Movement (YCS), instructively with the methodology of ‘see’, ‘judge’, ‘act’, ‘reflect’ and ‘act again’, it heartened me that this gentleman, reportedly a product of YCS, would lead the country’s lawyers in a Christian and constructive engagement with the rulers of this country in a bid to surmount our many challenges. You will also recall that it was routine, in those days, for our Catholic Bishops; Conference after their annual meetings to pay a courtesy call on the Christianborg Castle, then seat of government, reportedly to hold discussions with the head of state and his inner circle. The communiques that followed were honest, constructively critical and unanimously well-respected. For me, growing up, this entente between church and state, constituted an assurance that nothing was going to go awry and that governance was being conducted according to precepts or at least that government was being constantly monitored, critiqued and advised. The same cannot be said today, methinks.

St Jude, too often one hears proclamations like ‘I do not do politics’, ‘politics is a dirty game’, from many people, Christians included. What that means is that too many well-formed people are staying out of the business of governing the country and its people, leaving it to a few, with doubtful, if even in perception, ethics, morals and principles. How can we then rationally hope to achieve a government that is solely focused on the welfare of the citizens and the security of the nation while being totally accountable to same? The time to assess its propriety is long gone, we must, as Christians realise that it is our duty to be concerned with and involved in how we are governed. We must dig our heads out of the proverbial sand and rise up to the occasion. Social activism must be revived, guided and promoted. It must be taught our children, by deed and word. Needless to say, such activism must be morally upright and geared at the common good and welfare of the citizenry.

It is easier to be individualistic and to be concerned with only self. To care for and work for the general good requires strength and humility, bravery and the fear of God, it is arduous and sometimes thankless but it is Godly.  As a community, we cannot leave it to happenstance, it must be deliberate. Curiously we refer to our church as ‘the mother church’ and our country as our ‘motherland’, so let us begin now to treat them as the mothers they are. No one should require tuition on how to treat their mother but it appears we do. I shall not condemn us except to say that we have failed at the most basic of responsibilities, love of and care for mother.

St Jude, we have become a church that appears to be bent on becoming more insular, at best, or uncaring, at worst. Addiction is decimating the youth and we only moan, mores have been jettisoned and we only offer the perfunctory lament, marriages are disintegrating at an alarming rate and we greet same with indifference, crime has become normalized and we almost glorify same. Our country is in the throes of untold hardships yet we sit on our hands, our educational sector is facing major challenges and we only but shrug, our environment is being raped and laid to waste and we only organize workshops. Our lethargy is lethal, our indifference is defeatist, and our abandon is fatalistic.

St Jude, intercede for us so we begin again to live, not simply exist, to take action and not revel in inaction. As a church we have been known to set the pace, let us pick up the pieces and begin anew to set the agenda and maybe even dictate the tempo.

The Honourrebel Siriguboy